Currently there are many vehicles, such as cars, buses, trains, boats and planes that are used daily. All of these vehicles have seats for the driver and passengers. The seats typically have been designed so that the bottom of the seat is fixed during an accident. Current approaches to improving vehicle safety with fixed seats involve air bags or other restraints to keep seat occupants in close proximity to the seats during an accident.
Some of the worst types of accidents that occur are head-on collisions. In a head-on collision, the driver and passengers are propelled forward by the sudden change in vehicle momentum and then thrown back by their reflexes. The spine and head of a person in a fixed seat are often in a position where the vector force of the weight of the upper body is supported by the “seat” portion of the vehicle seat. Such a position is likely to increase the likelihood of internal injuries in the head-on collision.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach to construct a safer vehicle seat that overcomes the limitations of known approaches.